It was "DOC" Night at the January meeting where we covered everything you want and need to know about using FCP in the creation of documentaries, including managing media, creating your story, distribution and much much more. Plus show and tells, Stump the Gurus and of course, World Famous Raffle.

Agenda

6:45- 7:15PM - Stump the GurusJoin FCP Gurus, Ken Stone and special guest Gurus, Steve Martin of RippleTraining,Philip Hodgetts of Intelligent Assistance and author Lisa Brenneis, as they will attempt to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems concerning FCP. If they can't solve your problem or answer your How 2, then you get your pick of the raffle table. Of course you still go home with your problem but you get your pick of the raffle table.

7:20 - 7:50PM - Making Money Making Docs - Chuck BravermanChuck Braverman is a producer, director and cameraman for his own production company, Braverman Productions, Inc. He is well-known for his fast cut KINESTASIS montage films, including the three-minute history of the United States, AMERICAN TIME CAPSULE. Chuck has also directed several television movies and many episodic shows. He has won two Emmys for his documentaries, Clios for his commercials, and in 2001 took the top Feature Documentary award from the Directors Guild of America for HIGH SCHOOL BOOT CAMP and was nominated for an Academy Award for the documenatary short CURTAIN CALL. Last year his documentary ROCKY AND ROLANDO was nominated for a DGA award.

7:50PM - 8:10PM - "Cinerama Adventure" - Dave StrohmaierDave Strohmaier will talk about making his documentary Cinerama Adventure and the challenges and difficulties of doing a documentary on the historic lost widescreen film format. Cinerama thrilled audiences around the globe from 1952-1965 with its giant screen presentations and ahead of its time 7 channel surround sound. Subjects that will be covered include: filming 66 hours of original footage / interviews and editing without transcripts, specialized 6 perf. 35mm & 65mm film telecine, special 3D effects used to simulate a Cinerama experience, Creating an HD master for 35mm film out from an original NTSC online, final Dolby SRD sound mix. Behind the scenes video examples will be shown along with a clips from the documentary.

8:10PM - 8:30PM -Home Video and Television Sales for your Doc - Ted Bonnitt
Ted Bonnitt, of the film marketing company 7th Planet Radio Pictures (radiopictures.com) directed and produced his FCP DV doc "Mau Mau Sex Sex" (maumausexsex.com) DIY style, and self-distributed it to commercial theaters in 20 major U.S. cities on DVD- a first. He's spent the last 2 years researching new ways to distribute his doc to the home video market, which will hit stores in February. Ted will discuss low-budget approaches to attracting distributor and retailer interest in your doc, and creative deal making with home video distributors that can yield you 2 to 5 times more money per DVD sale than with traditional distribution deals.

He'll provide an overview of the home video distribution system and how to navigate it as a digi-indie, while not getting lost in the wholesale shuffle. He'll also offer tips on international broadcast sales. Specifics include:

-How to prepare your doc for home video and television sales during and after production.

-How to market your doc to theaters, home video distributors and overseas television sales agents from the same computer that you made your movie on.

8:30PM - 8:50PM - Break
In the Lobby will be Promax showing off new toys. Intelligent Assistance will also be showing off the must have Great Visual FX CDs and Killer Titles CDs and talking about their brand new "Assistance on Demand." Steve Martin will be selling his brand new fresh off the shelf LIVETYPE TEXTURES Promax's Frank Rohmer will be selling the brand new DVD Studio Pro 2 DVD Tutorial for $99.00. lafcpug will be selling past "lafcpug on DVD meetings" (Oct 2001 - Oct 2002) for 3 for $10.00 Plus another addition of the FCP Guru table where we "guarantee" you'll get your FCP 4 questions answered.

8:50PM - 9:20PM - "Making Docs: The Process" - Myles Connelly
Filmmaker and Editor Myles Connelly has worked on dozens of documentaries, most notably for legendary production company, MacGillivray Freeman Films, producers of such IMAX films as Everest,The Living Sea and Dolphins. Currently in release is the feature film, "Young Black Stallion," in which Myles served as Production Supervisor. From Myles:Specifically, I will cover -

2. Getting off to a good start - Production essentials including priorities list, capturing quality sound, production logs and notes.

3. The fluid nature of docs, or "everything's worth a try" including the use of archival, outakes, stock footage, etc.

4. Make the movie, then write the script - the circular logic behind most documentary scripts

5. Now you're done - What to do with your doc - distribution in today's market

6. Five ways to know when you've gotten too close to your project - learning to let go.

9:20PM - 9:35PM - "Making Gretchen" - Peter Jazwinski
From Peter:
"First I'll show a 5 minute clip of "Making Gretchen." This is a documentary currently in post production with a premiere set for 3/1. It's the story of a 29 year old woman who hired a production company to shoot a short film that she wrote and starred in. They shot in Los Angeles on 35mm film over the course of 1 week. I followed them from production meetings through post with my sony PD150 and shotgun mic. I'm currently editing on FCP 3. I logged 2000 minutes of footage.
I'll talk briefly about managing story, notes and ideas as I tried to structure the movie. The most daunting task was realizing that I had 51 tapes and no script to follow. Since nothing particularly outrageous happened, I had to find a way to craft something interesting. To do this I used a combination of notes, logging information and a keen memory."